


On a Scale of One to Koosh Ball

by Stultiloquentia



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stultiloquentia/pseuds/Stultiloquentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Jack got angry -- truly angry, not just annoyed or cranky or exasperated -- with Daniel.  Written as an outtake from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/179008">Good Morning, Penthesilea</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	On a Scale of One to Koosh Ball

One of Daniel's sharpest memories of year one was the first time Jack got angry with him. Not annoyed, or cranky, or exasperated—truly angry. It happened six weeks in, and caught Daniel utterly by surprise.

Until the ten pound Aramaic lexicon banged down on the worktable two inches from his head, he'd been dead asleep. "All-nighter?" Jack queried mildly, from just outside the range of Daniel's flailing limbs. He sipped coffee. Its dark, complex, possibly-Ethiopian, definitely-not-commissary aroma drifted past Daniel's nose. Jack's other hand, the lexicon hand, dangled at his side; cruelly, he was not secreting a second cup behind his back.

"Ug," said Daniel, and picked his glasses off his eyebrows.

"Briefing's in ten," said Jack, and exited.

"I— 'kay," Daniel mumbled, cracked his neck, swept up his notes, and went to splash water on his face and grab commissary coffee and some kind of portable carbohydrate to take to the briefing room.

Where, after an eighty-five minute summary of objectives, expectations and protocols for a scheduled jaunt to P3X-1400, Jack proceeded to answer General Hammond's, "Colonel O'Neill, prep your team for a 15h00 departure!" with, "Can't do that, sir."

"What?" Daniel exclaimed, overlapping with Hammond's, "Colonel?"

"I need at least another twenty-four hours before my team is field-ready, sir."

"You've already had ten days; is this something you can solve in one more?"

Daniel broke in irately. "What else can we possibly—Jack, that camp on the telemetry was _nomadic_ , do you even know what that means? We can't go until mid-afternoon local, which means at least thirty- _six_ hours until—"

Hammond looked at Jack. Jack had his poker face on, as far as Daniel could tell, but Hammond wasn't Daniel, and apparently secret military eyebrow semaphore was being exercised, because after a moment he gave a brief nod and sat back, looking resigned. Teal'c watched the byplay closely and expressionlessly. Sam looked surprised, and as if she might be wracking her memory for something _she'd_ mishandled or forgotten.

The briefing ended with orders to reconvene tomorrow.

Daniel trailed Jack back to his office, a closet-sized space housing a desk disconcertingly wider than the door on all sides, a filing cabinet, and a lot of partially unpacked boxes of, presumably, reference manuals and personnel files, though the top layer closest to the hall looked like suspiciously like a baseball almanac. Jack sat down behind his desk before squarely meeting Daniel's gaze. He'd expected to be followed.

"So," Daniel sallied, "I think I've correctly deduced that this one's about me. Think you might condescend to be more forthcoming than you were with the General?"

Jack stared at him for a second, reached a long arm into the bottom drawer of his desk, and lobbed a Koosh ball right at Daniel's face. It bounced off the bridge of his nose and narrowly missed his coffee cup, which sloshed as Daniel brought hands up in belated self defense.

"What the hell!"

"Every hour of sleep you miss," Jack clipped out, "that's a thirty percent drop in reaction time in the field. You're endangering my team."

Daniel gaped, then spluttered. "I— _what?_ " Jack only raised his eyebrows, uninterested in repeating the obvious. "I am perfectly fucking functional. I work like this all the time. I'm doing what I have to do."

"No," said Jack, "you're doing what you think you have to do."

Daniel scrubbed his hand over his face, trying to banish his gritty headache, then parsed his own gesture and glared. "What I—? I am not in there pecking out freshman position papers, Jack! Those translations, that research— _every last paragraph of it_ —could mean the difference between life and death out there."

"Your ability to _keep your eyes open_ means life and death out there," Jack snapped back. "I don't give a rat's ass how you got through your post-doc, or how many macho points you racked up by running on caffeine instead of sleep—it won't cut it here. Not on this team." It was a shit thing to say. Jack seemed to realize it, because he followed up with, "I know you need a staff. We're working on it." He scrubbed his face exactly the way Daniel had, then leant back and tapped his finger against his desk. "Until then—believe me, Daniel—your judgment's more valuable than your knowledge." Figured that the first time Jack ever got angry with Daniel was also the first time he ever complimented him to his face.

"You could have just told me this!" Daniel shouted.

"Did. I said, 'Take a break, Daniel.' I said, 'Go home, Daniel.' I said, 'Get some sleep, Daniel.' I recall at least one occasion on which I _physically hauled you from your chair_ and removed you from the premises." Jack sighed. "Make a routine and keep it. Crap TV or warm milk or... whatever works." His voice went a little abstracted. "Sara used to swear by eucalyptus oil."

What Daniel really wanted was to be sleeping at Jack's house, like he had the first week back. There, he'd fallen asleep like a month old puppy because he really _had_ been at the end of his rope, so mentally exhausted that the slightest change in safety level—and Jack's house felt safe, as much as any place did—had let him drop his guard and plunge.

He supposed that wasn't a feasible long-term solution.

He blew out a breath, opened his mouth—and then just pivoted and left Jack to get on with his afternoon.

Daniel left work at five sharp. He didn't know, at that point, what kinds of takeout caused joy or dolor, so he just pulled into a random mom & pop pizza joint and got a large with everything.

"Hi," he said on Jack's doorstep.

"Hi."

He pulled air into his lungs. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't—I've been so—" He pressed his lips together and made himself fix his gaze on Jack's face and not his rose bushes. "I wasn't listening."

Jack took pity then and ushered him inside—same brief, shrewd look followed by wrist flick with which he'd invited Daniel home the first time. It made Daniel feel better.

Jack ate the pizza with apparent gusto, even if he blinked at the broccoli florets hobnobbing with the sausage when he opened the box. They drank water and shared a slice of chocolate crème pie Jack had apparently smuggled out of the Mountain under his coat.

"Can I sleep in your spare room tonight?"

"Daniel...."

"Just tonight. I promise. It's just that the last time I slept like a log was in your house. I'm hoping it might help me reset."

"One night, Daniel. _One night_ , and then you seriously have to start breaking in that new apartment."

It worked.

Daniel did pull all-nighters after that. They all did, Jack included. Sometimes those all-nighters saved Jack's life. Sometimes they saved nine billion lives. Sometimes they just gave everybody headaches and rotten tempers.

But he never did it again unless he had to, and he learnt to fall asleep quickly and wake up sharp, and he kicked the burgeoning caffeine addiction while he was at it, because that was a stupid thing to get stuck with offworld in some third-rate, macramé-clad godling's dungeon of despair.

It wasn't the last time Jack got angry, or Daniel did, or even the last appearance of the flying Koosh ball. It barely registered, in the long term, on the scale of one to hell. But it set a tone, by showing them that they could.


End file.
